Dark was the night, cold was the ground
by Nynaeve55
Summary: She feels a strong pull knowing that's the direction she must follow and hurries on that path. After all she only has tonight…


Dark was the night, cold was the ground

It's already dark when she gets home. Her feet hurt and every muscle seems to scream in pain. She can feel the fatigue and weariness of today strain over her body, but that is not what bothers her the most. It's not the headache, nor her sore throat that burns and begs for a glass of cool water as if she had just crossed a desert before reaching the confines of her house.

No, none of that matter in this very instant. What she desires is something much different, for it's another kind of thirst that her mind wants to clench. It's what makes her heart ache every time she opens the door and finds the small apartment empty, devoid of life just like those millions of planets thrown haphazardly across the universe.

Her feet give in and she slowly slides down on the cold tiles. She wants to scream, to howl, anything just to get rid of this unwanted emotional baggage that is wearing her heart and mind out. She opens her mouth readying herself to get it all out but no sounds come out. She closes it shut and tries again but the result is the same. It's infuriating. And maddening. She feels like she's living a cruel joke standing there with her mouth gaping open and then shutting, with no sound coming out as if she were a fish on land. Hysteria lurks at the confines of her mind and for a split of a second she lets it in uttering a frenzied laughter. That seems to do the trick and after a while, after she has finally calmed down, she feels better, lighter.

She sits there on the floor with her back pressed against the door and lets her mind float from there to nowhere, because truth be told she can't let it linger or go in certain directions. She's afraid that in a moment of negligence she may slip and her mind will wander to that dreadful place, that place filled with memories and hope and…No! She mentally shouts and opens her eyes trying to get back to the present. But it's too little, too late. Now she's breaking down again, the first soundless sobs making their way to the surface. Her shoulders start trembling and she curses names, lives and ideas to the seventh layer of hell.

Time passes all to slow in this house where everything appears to have been frozen over, forever unmoving, forever unchanging. But somehow the woman finds some strength in her and manages to rise. With rigid, mechanical movements she picks up the keys and her purse not even aware of having dropped them, sets them on the table and makes her way into the kitchen. She opens drawers and cupboards searching for the necessary items to brew a tea, yet everything seems to be misplaced. She sighs and decides that she'd rather have a coffee. And definitely a cigarette now that we are at it, she thinks. She hovers in mid movement debating what to do. It's late for drinking coffee but she craves one and she can imagine how the dark liquid would taste against her tongue. To hell with everything, she decides and prepares herself a mug.

Ten minutes later find her on the balcony, the mug in one hand and in the other a cigarette. She is looking over the scenery. Thousands of lights from thousands of apartments glimmer with a strange brilliance and even the stars above seem to hold a strange light in them this evening as if developing a life and strength of their own.

As she gazes at them she can't help but wonder if the stars gaze back on the Earth and its inhabitants. She fancies they do, because there is something intrinsically poetic about the notion. And she likes poetry.

She almost turns to the other side of the balcony to ask the man a question but stops right in time. He is no longer there, hasn't been for some time.

He's nowhere in particular and everywhere at the same time she sometimes thinks. He is in all the misplaced items in her apartment, in the jackets and other clothes thrown in the back of the closet, he is in the mischievous smile of a stranger, in the stars above and in the air she breaths. In all of her mistakes, in the hours of the morning when instead of waking up to ready herself for work she stays in bed drifting between awareness and sleep, he's in her anger, her love and her passion, in her very blood. Or at least that was what she told herself in the beginning, in the days that followed the talk with his brother, days when she needed an anchor to ground her onto reality. Now she no longer thinks about him, or at least tries not to, for one simple thought leads to another, then another again and again until she's faced with all her failings and errors. She doesn't want that, not now. The right time will come when she will deal with that, with the loss of purpose, with the frustration that comes from a job that gives her no rewards, something that bears no fruits, no productivity, whose sole purpose is to put food on her table. She'll deal with her broken dreams and her unfulfilled aspiration. With the loss of him.

And with the loss of him comes the loss of his heat, the loss of his kisses, his touches, the loss of his arms around her, his mind trapping her, his glance scorching her. She wants to be devoured, consumed in his hunger and passion, forever lost in the labyrinth that it's his mind. Forever frozen in a status quo that's how she feels right now and she doesn't like it at all. Her lips silently move uttering his name. She's still grieving, that's the truth. Caught in the whirlwind of life the woman has yet to find the time to mourn, to go through all of the emotional stages that compose the Kübler-Ross model, in order to be able to move forward. Right now she seems to be stuck with denial.

There's something in the air tonight though. A peculiar sort of electricity fills it and she thinks that something unbelievable might happen tonight. Like the dead coming back to life, a ludicrous notion to say at least, but then again isn't life sometimes filled with such instances? Also, there are stranger notions and facts wondering through the world.

The eerie silence is broken by a sound. It seems otherworldly this ringing of the phone in this context and the woman almost dismisses it not wanting to face the outside world. Yet an unseen force makes her get up from the chair and answer the machine. She expects to hear the voices of friends, relatives or even people she hasn't met – and never will - calling to make ill-timed jokes on practical strangers but her hearing is met with silence.

She frowns not really knowing what to do. She doesn't want to be the first to break the silence, she doesn't want to break the silence at all. In this quietude she can pretend that's however she wants at the other side just waiting for a sign to her. And she's withholding it in cruel punishment for her own pain. Moments pass and she's standing there unmoving, nonspeaking with the silence engulfing her.

A breathy chuckle resounds at the end of the line and the woman can feel herself smiling at the craziness of the situation.

"Hello, darling," a voice answers on the other line and it's her turn to let out a chuckle. Who would have thought…

"Hello," comes her reply and she can almost feel him smiling wherever he is. Apparently tonight not only her apartment has been frozen over but Hel itself as well.

"Come to me," the man says before shutting the phone. He doesn't wait for her reply, doesn't need to, there's only one answer left to say.

"Yes," she breaths into the device even though he no longer can hear her. But she knows that the wind is caring her reply to him as she picks her keys and heads for her car.

She feels a strong pull knowing that's the direction she must follow and hurries up that way. After all she only has tonight…


End file.
